SAN­DRA L BLOOD

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The Ca­lyp­so Art Spe­cial­ists of Trinidad & To­ba­go (CASTT) led by mu­si­cian and di­rec­tor, Joey Rivers, have pre­sent­ed prizes to the 2022 Joey Rivers Ca­lyp­so Fes­ti­val cham­pi­ons Ke­shawn Gomez and Isi­ah Reg­is.

Gomez won the 7-12 age cat­e­go­ry and Reg­is, the 13-17.

The ob­jec­tive of the fes­ti­val was to es­tab­lish a de­vel­op­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence for all par­tic­i­pants. In ad­di­tion to the fi­nal pre­sen­ta­tion of their com­po­si­tions, the young tal­ents were al­so ex­posed to a suite of per­for­mance and de­vel­op­ment tips de­liv­ered by ex­perts, pro­fes­sion­als and prac­ti­tion­ers in­volved in the ca­reers of sev­er­al suc­cess­ful artists.

In 2016, Rivers de­vel­oped and found­ed CASTT. It is a pro­fes­sion­al mu­sic fa­cil­i­ty fo­cused on en­abling the suc­cess­ful ca­reers of up­com­ing as well as es­tab­lished mu­si­cians.

Rivers said: “The main fo­cus is to en­sure we have a next gen­er­a­tion of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. Some of our stal­warts have left us, so I be­lieve we must con­tin­ue to en­gage the next set of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, so that they tru­ly un­der­stand the val­ue of mu­sic, pro­duc­tion, and pre­sen­ta­tion. If they are se­ri­ous about hon­ing this craft, this is the plat­form to start from.”

At the prize-giv­ing event, held re­cent­ly at Gayelle stu­dios in St Joseph, Rivers pre­sent­ed prizes to all eight par­tic­i­pants.

They each re­ceived Mu­sic Pro­duc­tion (CASTT Stu­dio), Mu­sic Video (Gayelle), Sheet Mu­sic (CASTT Pub­li­ca­tions), Gui­tar with ac­ces­sories (CASTT Mu­sic Sup­plies), Gui­tar & Mu­sic The­o­ry Lessons from Joey Rivers CASTT Mu­sic School, Ap­pear­ance fee, Pro­duc­tion Train­ing & Ap­pren­tice­ship at Gayelle Stu­dio as well as Pro­fes­sion­al De­vel­op­ment Train­ing from SOS Cen­tre.

Keshawn Gomez, left, Joey Rivers, Isiah Regis, Jelani Francis, Nixon Callender, guest speaker, Liz Montano, Dillon Mohammed, Joshua Thompson and Errol Fabien.

This year’s fes­ti­val was al­so sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts and The Mu­sic House.

Liz Mon­tano, moth­er of so­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano was the guest speak­er, she of­fered words of ad­vice to the young artistes as well as their par­ents.

Shar­ing her ex­pe­ri­ence as man­ag­er to Machel, Mon­tano said when she en­tered the en­ter­tain­ment busi­ness, she ad­mit­ted she knew lit­tle about it, but as ed­u­ca­tors, she and her hus­band Mon­ty read a lot so they could of­fer guid­ance. “That suc­cess came from sup­port as par­ents.”

Mrs Mon­tano said the most im­por­tant les­son was learn­ing that suc­cess meant be­ing re­silient. “Even when you en­ter a com­pe­ti­tion, not every time is a best win. You learn to win but you must learn to lose. So, pre­pare your­self from ear­ly.”

The prize-giv­ing event end­ed with an ex­tem­po among the young bards, who en­joyed the lyri­cal ban­ter and ex­change that fo­cused on their out­fits.

Rivers, a foun­da­tion mem­ber of Machel Mon­tano and Xtatik since age 12, is an ac­com­plished mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor, mu­si­cian, and pro­duc­er.

He has as­sist­ed and sup­port­ed artistes, mu­si­cians, folk the­atre groups, choirs, steel­bands, parang bands, and con­ven­tion­al con­tem­po­rary bands over the years.